Preliminary Investigation of the Relationship between Religion and Psychological Distress in Black Women

Abstract
Analysis of the relationship for 114 black women (a 15% sample) between religion, measured by the Integration Scale of the Personal Religiosity Inventory, and psychological distress, measured by the Langner Symptom Survey, an epidemiological measure with a valid cut-off score to identify individuals in distress, yielded statistically significant and clinically meaningful information for high and low religious groups ( ns = 42 and 13). A low level of religion was associated with significant mental distress while a high level of religion was associated with adjustment scores that did not reflect psychological distress